• When the new maps arrive, they'll be added to the general map pool, but also a new 3v3 playlist called "New Territory" will feature exclusively the new maps, and rotate between Survival, Elimination, Clash, and Collision.
• New Territory will be available until The Final Shape launches.
• Playing New Territory at all while it's available will grant the following new emblem Slaycation

• Rahool is being given a new reputation track. Decoding engrams will progress the track.
  • Precision decryption (the current most precise option) gives the most rep, followed by Advanced decryption (the decryption that gives any armor from a specific release), then just opening an exotic engram, then opening a prime engram.
• The reputation track rewards enhancement cores, prisms, and some shards, as well as the typical powerful reward every 3 levels.
• Resetting the reputation track will give an Exotic Cipher, and also unlock an additional focusing option (seemingly named "Engram Ensiders").
• Engram Ensiders will allow you to spend an Exotic Engram and an Exotic Cipher to acquire any exotic armor for any character.
  • NOTE: they heavily imply that this will also let you acquire any exotic armor you don't own yet, and in fact be the only way to unlock new exotic armor, but they somehow don't specifically state that so I guess be wary that I could be reading this wrong.
• Lost Sectors will keep the same drop rate, but drop Exotic Engrams instead of Exotic Armor.
• Vex Strike Force will continue to drop new exotic armor that you don't have yet from its current pool, but its pool will not be changing moving forward.
• A full inventory of Exotic Engrams decrypted through Precision decryption should almost completely reset Rahool's reputation track, so prepping some engrams and ascendant shards for The Final Shape is advisable.

• Shaders have 6 different textures that they apply to armor, but currently shader icons only show 4 of them. This might lead to the shader looking much different than expected when applied to armor.
• Current shader icons also visually weigh all 4 textures shown equally, which doesn't appropriately indicate which textures are the "main" ones typically used on armor.
• Glows are also not present on the current shader icons at all.
• To resolve all of this, they have redesigned the shader icon to more prominently show the main textures, include all 6 textures, and the glows as well.
• A specific comparison with the Gambit Jadestone icon:

• There is a long and interesting discussion on past and present special ammo distribution systems for Crucible, and the design process behind the new system they are announcing. Read that on the blog itself here, for the meat of the change see below
• Sometime after the launch of The Final Shape they will be replacing the current special ammo bar system in Crucible with a new "blended" design.
  • Players will respawn each life with 1 kill worth of special ammo. This makes sure players never go long without special ammo in their gun, without making a surplus of ammo.
  • Primary weapon final blows will drop a personal ammo brick that gives 1 kill worth of special ammo. This is a deterministic way of earning special ammo, but without allowing snowballing from special kills or abilities and supers.
    • This system is planned to be replaced by a reworked special ammo meter system at some point in the future. They switched to this variant due to issues discovered with the current meter implementation.
  • Crates will continue to be used, but their icon will show up at lower ranges than before, and only will grant one kill's worth of ammo. This is to let the ammo crates serve as points of interest in the map, but without being requirements to engage with to use special ammo.

• There's some fun profiles of the currently available Pantheon bosses, with minor lore context. Check out the blog post for those, there's not much new info here if you're caught up on the lore, although they do mention that Atraks may have been backed up somewhere on Europa before she died.
• Checkpoints in Pantheon are currently disabled for the 2nd and 3rd encounters (Caretaker and Zo'aurc) due to an issue. They're working to fix the issue and reenable the checkpoints ASAP.
• Completing the Pantheon at any tier allows you to purchase a variant of the raid ring from the Bungie Store. Collecting the Godslayer title will allow you to purchase a title pin as usual. Both must be purchased before June 3.
• Archie quests are only available for the week that they are released, and will be replaced with a new quest each week. To earn the Blue Steel shader, you only need to do one of any of the Archie quests. Any lore pages missed by missing a quest will be available in game once The Final Shape releases.
• Due to Microsoft and Steam dropping support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1, Bungie will also be dropping support for these Windows versions on June 4. The game may function on them for some time afterward, but if issues develop there wil be no support provided.

Did we miss anything? Let us known in the #tips channel on our Discord.

Sources:

• This Week In Destiny - 05/02/2024